Date: Monday 5th & 7th Nov 2018
Who: Lynn Lennon, Brett Pischke, Yvonne Matsas,Margaret Henville, Jason Emmins, Dee Brooks, Kerry Hartigan, Cecily Spradbrow.
Apologies: Michaela Kennedy, Lisa Zulfiqar
OUR PURPOSE: Build on how we can consciously connect and co-create our future through delving into what we have made together since our last gathering.
OUR WONDERFUL GATHERING PLACE: The land of the Worimi people.
Day 1
The Jeder Institute held their annual Gathering, thanks to Kerry’s family, who offered their holiday home for our time together. We started by considering the draft Flow which had been started on Loomio and the suggestion to continue to co-create what was needed, as we went. We made a collective decision to sit in the space of emergence and pay attention to what was needed from those who were present.
Art of Coasting (AoC): Kerry provided an overview of the Art of Hosting and how AoC came about at the Ballina Art of Hosting training and suggested we explore the same principles on:
- Everyone being a co-host
- Acknowledging that everyone has wisdom and gifts to offer, equal value / contributions
- We have permission to support each other openly
- To work on the principles, with undefined roles, together
- Understand no one person has all the answers
An initial flow had been developed so, we had a discussion in the morning about what was needed and collectively decided to start with check-in, a 2 Loops teach and outdoor activity including a discussion about what’s important for the organisation and “where are we at”. We also agreed to the following Nimble Harvest guidelines:
- Transcribe posters/sticky notes during breaks
- Purple dot in top left corner for “transcribing done and emailed”
- Orange dot in top left corner for “photo taken”
- Add these steps to “Capturing Dingoes” poster for continuous improvement
Check In:
A number of check in questions were put forward and it resulted in two rounds occurring. From this the theme emerged of “Tidying Up”.
Live Scribe – Question 1: Why is it important for you to be here / What was your calling to be here this week?
- Chosen teapot, reason here always feel need to learn more, cup of tea, warm fuzzy way to learn.
- Connect to organisation, overarching philosophies, singularly one to one, bureaucracy – no clear permitters, lots of ants, circuit breaker, listen to learn and refresh.
- Reflect, pause, stop, tidy up, process, understanding a bit, what is potential, curious – better and expand on, bring things back together again.
- Checked out a bit this year – been sitting in divergence for a while and questioning if Jeder is right for me – done a bit of self-development as well. Curiosity and clarity – believe in the pillars and this is keeping me here. Tidying up and resolution to things that have been there for a while- clarity and connecting- don’t see each other that often and not realising the power of this.
- Many reasons, 12pm on Saturday – why am I doing this – obligation. Connection – would be good for me; big year, everyone questioning why I am here, why doing this, massive growth, trying to find a way through, ducks in row – get our stuff together. Ducks in a row, clarity. Started forming masters – breathe pattern, ABCD practices. No one said Breathing is easy –Story in LA bookshop – What is an apparatus? Breathe pattern fits into it. Breathe pattern – natural, shape, what phase, forward direction, brutal, prickly; Not sure – messy groan zone / individual places; Individual needing to be here.
- Explore why I stay with Jeder, mentor – default to run when things get difficult, new default is to stay. Conversations that need to happen – they can only go so far on line. Emerge again – sparks are occurring;
- First saw question, work mood. Been with Jeder – dive a bit deeper. Tidy up loose ends. Best decision I made to join Jeder; connection within a circle; Hosting of self, make time to check out and focus on self, world will survive. Be here and present.
- Circle a few times, question resonate clearly – Ouija board thing. Line drawn in the sand, my old job; Important connection, understand people, something better is coming – This is my job. Understand Jeder – do something that looks after me; Fully understand and fully give.
- To connect with people, isolated within role.
Live Scribe – Question 2: What do I need to happen?
- Streamlining tasks, need to do and will be better space if I can get that in order. Personal life impacting on work
- 4 ½ years had a serious accident- you are here for a reason or meant to do other things- started to question what the other things are. Bumped in Mic in the recovery stage and had a conversation… still trying to work it out. Going from a hierarchy system to the here now… a work in progress but I am open book and what to learn the “new way” and the way we can contribute to the lives of people we
- A bit of a lull in my work, a lot of stuff happening personally not sure if quite ready to step up. Here to contribute what I can, better of understanding of my finances, how I get paid – back into my account letting it sit there – figure it out (spend more money on floors).
- How to we make things easier and
- Don’t know. Need to mojo back (gut saying)- solutions, clarity, what was saying
- Getting it simple, complex path to get it simple, acknowledging of each member strengths – corporate rebels form – who knows what; Allocating time to do e.g. skills audit; Really look at pillars and principals – don’t discuss; Coaching model for organisation, few tick boxes
- Action stations; finishing the membership, dollars handbook, communication platform, financial governance, strategic thinking – moving forward (formulation re admin and allocation of time), future
- Dingo – new way; Jeder amazing amount of resources, gsuite to be cleaned up / filing. Induction invitation side needs to be tidied Same faces in the Jedi’s – invitation conversation there is more to Jeder.
- Let go so I can give back, reflected back its 9am and I should be working. Mindshift – don’t like change, acknowledging it. If it doesn’t happen between 9 – 5pm
Kerry led a conversational activity around Two Loops, this included an open conversation about each element and where we are as Jeder Institute and where we are in the system of government funding.
Open Questions: Where are you in Jeder? Where is Jeder in the system?
Responses:
Each element was harvested where people placed themselves in the discussion activity:
- Illuminate: how do we best illuminate our message? If you have other ideas/thoughts/feedback to give it
- Connect: who are the other orgs working differently? People…
- Stewards: systems and communication – upgrade the boat / infrastructure – Board – Time – Stop / default of a hierarchy and someone else will do / FEAR / systems and communication / permission to give feedback
- Compost: what do we need to get rid of? System – process… working / keep essence of documents / what to keep? / language
- Resource: new ideas: Jedi, Time capacity, if not within/external / core work – get it done / Jeder based trainings / strat plans? Planning things, in place – communicate / planning and prep / core funding
Future Actions:
- Open member discussion about how to best get our organisational message out
- Link with other organisations and people who work in a different way
- Upgrade our infrastructure
- Speak up! If you have a new idea or way of working, share it
- Open member discussion about what is not working for us or what do we need to compost and what to keep? (e.g. language)
- Compile resources; Jeder trainings, Jedi workings, strategic plans
- Open member discussion about finding core funding
TIDY UP, TIDY UP, TIDY UP:
After lunch, we welcomed and checked-in Cecily, who had arrived and we all agreed on taking some time to capture our thoughts on what needed to be done by writing one topic per sticky note and offering them to the centre. We noticed some clusters coming together and decided that the emerging theme for the Gathering was “tidy up” and we created some topical areas to form small groups around.
It was noted that some of the “tidy up” themes could be managed quickly by moving them through a proposal process. IT support, Loomio and Finances were carried over to the next day’s Flow and our communication platforms and online systems were added for discussion and other potential proposals for the next day, as well.
The first round of 3 working groups were formed:
- Governance: Margaret and Dee
- Filing system / document management: Lynn, Brett, Raye
- Membership: Jason, Cecily, Yvonne
Working Group Feedback:
Governance:
Margaret and Dee decided to condense the governance main points into a future proposal and worked together on finalising the one page overview of the organisation for members to use as a marketing tool. They tidied up the overview and sent the proposal straight to Loomio for feedback from other members.
Filing System:
Lynn, Brett and Raye worked on the filing system, linked to GSuite, to develop some over-arching headings / themes for a naming/filing system, version control, different areas of the organisation and storage/archiving needs. Lynn committed to contacting a former colleague to obtain information about tijme required and costs to outsource this task.
Membership:
Jason, Cecily and Yvonne looked at the status of member documents, benefits, handbooks, past gatherings and streamlining. The results of this conversation flowed over into the Financial Handbook and the membership benefits document discussions on Loomio.
Jeder’s Pillars & Purpose
Margaret gave an overview of the Jeder Pillars and Evolutionary Purpose and hosted a discussion regarding the Pillars, what they are and what they mean to us:
- Participatory Leadership
- Generosity of Spirit
- Co creation for change
- Self Organising
Next Stage (NSO) / Teal breakthroughs:
Margaret facilitated a brief discussion about the teal breakthroughs and Jeder as a NSO and Dee offered the current Theory of Change for discussion before we had a working discussion about Jeder’s evolutionary purpose. The breakthroughs are:
- Evolutionary purpose
- Self-management
- Wholeness
Theory of Change:
Dee offered the current Theory of Change for discussion and feedback and described the ToC as something that emerged from the world of “entrepreneurship” and basically says that, “…if we do this… then we get that…”
It’s an “if / then” proposition and Jeder Institute’s example is that we bring people together using strength-based practices to generate collective thinking.
In ToC terms; if we bring people together, we get collective thinking. Adding this to our thoughts around our EP, the open feedback from the group was as follows.
Evolutionary Purpose (EP): Jeder… at the heart of change…
Our evolutionary purpose was first developed in 2016 and each year we have reviewed it and decided to make no changes, for now. This year, the group who was gathered decided it was time to have a deeper look at the EP and start to create some energy and discussion about what might need to change.
Group question: based on Jeder’s Pillars and Purpose and Theory of Change, in conjunction with Teal’s breakthrough’s, what does our evolutionary purpose mean to you?
Pillars & Practices Review:
Our strengths-based platform supports mentorship, induction and coaching through Next Stage Policies and Procedures, Membership and Evolutionary Purpose.
Our Pillars hold us on our strengths-based platform and could possibly have a vision statement that ties them together or a “calling question” for the organisation.
The beams are our practices; NDIS / CoS, RBA, AoH, ABCD, Person-Centred and what covers us is an overall “human-centred” purpose.
Action:
We decided this was a good start and needed more input from other members and further discussion.
Responses:
- In there, tidying up, tweaking of words
- Doesn’t grab me, formatted and direct, phrase
- Expansion, more body
- Clarify the crystals
- Check In: Why is it important for you to be able articulate
- Human centred
- Calling question for the organisation
- Same page – re pillars
- Shared Language
- Principals – agreed how we work
Lastly, we had a brief look at what was converging and decided that for the Jeder Institute, “teal” was aspirational and “green” was where we are currently at, specifically a “good green” and “orange” is there to remind us when we fall below the line.
Good Green was discussed as:
- Life giving
- Raggy dolls
- Next stage
- Good work
- Change space
- Challenge the system
- Change space
- A reminder space, for questions like, “what is green compliance?”
Check Out:
Question: how are you leaving / what do you do to take care of yourself when you’re tired?
Day 2
Check In:
Question: Where’s your favourite place to chill out and why?
K: Bath when kids were younger, lawn mowing blocking everything out L: Books or beach
B: Yamba
C: Beach, mowing lawn, walking – think my own thoughts
Y: Many strategies, walking the dog, beach, overseas holiday – cultural homeland M: lounge chair – just sit;
J: mowing the lawn – straight lines ear phones in. Beach not going in as crazy D: In Australia in a pool, swimming – Austria bush walking
R: Gym kickboxing or bush, beach / bush.
Dee provided a reflection on Day One and gave an overview of the upcoming day, according to what was carried over, before we shifted into break out groups to complete some minor tasks or commence work on outstanding threads from Loomio discussions.
Intro to Loomio hosted by Dee:
Dee gave an hour’s teach on Loomio; breaking it down like a “filing cabinet”, as follows:
- The left hand column is the main Jeder Institute account or “filing cabinet”
- The list below the Jeder Institute in bold, are the various “draws” of the filing cabinet that you are a member of (this is Dee’s screenshot, you won’t be members of all of these) you can click on these and see the “files” inside that draw
- The right hand column is where you can scroll down and see the group members, invitations, ALL sub-groups (Jedi’s), attachments and proposals/decisions
Don’t be afraid to have a go! Anything can be undone and please reach out to your coach or support person to submit a proposal for a great idea you have or to be part of a Jedi (sub-group)!
Finance Handbook Review by Jason, Raye and Kerry:
Kerry presented the Finance Handbook, to date, and showed members the CASH COW FLOW diagram that was developed. It was discussed that the handbook was good enough for now and needed to be put out the whole collective. The Finance handbook is located in Jeder ADMIN – Handbooks.
Jason and Raye added their thoughts and understanding and broke into some smaller groups with members to support and work on their individual finance issues and challenges.
During the open finance discussion, Dee grouped left over sticky note items ready for Rapid Discussion Rounds (RDR) and explained the process to members who had not been at the last Gathering where the RDR process was created.
Consent Decision Making Rounds:
We had 1 round of Consent Decision Making about member loans for Jeder training and coaching that shifted to a Growth Conversation for future post-Gathering follow up with the Dollars Jedi.
Rapid Discussion Round (RDR):
We had time for 1 RDR before checking out for the day. Out of the list of areas to start on, there were 3 main areas; communication, IT support and coaching. We decided to attack the IT support before checking out for the day.
Rapid Discussion Round #1:
IT Support
Discussion:
- Dropbox – remove non-members & set a date to transition to GSuite
- Check on status of “allmembers@jeder” email address
- Security needs fixing / updating on emails
- All IT needs Mac & PC descriptions & support
- For conferences: mailing lists & secure website for payments needed (currently “unsecured website”)
- Platforms are as good as the users: need training
- Slack processes
- How do we gather / retain relevant info when members leave?
Actions:
- ask Rich for help or referral
- Host member zoom sessions
- Develop how-to training vids
- Create “tech trinity” poll & include email & Dropbox for user feedback on usage
- By mid January
Check Out:
Question: what is the one thing that you feel you can do to “spend” your time more wisely? What will you do with the “savings”?
Day 3
We started the day reviewing our brainstorming/thinking spot, which helped us decide the flow of the day. After a check-in, we went straight into another RDR, reviewed the actions needed for the rest of the themes and checked out and tidied up the space as people needed to leave early.
Check-in:
Question: What has shifted for me?
- Tidy/fix up. Get moving, 12 month journey
- 12 months later it is a safer space. I can Speak
- Connecting back to teachings 12 months ago
- Tidy up has motivated me. Would like to see more
- Shift in personal space and Tidy up
- More Clarification on changes
- Reminder to breathe
- Need to address changes needed
- Not good at treading water. Swim or stop
- Got shit done
- Be part of it and make a contribution to change
- Chambermaiding. Human connections. Heartened
- Tidy up. Evolutionary. Innovation. Pillars/action. Tidy up
Rapid Discussion Round #1:
Website Backend
Discussion:
- past difficulty/conversations flagged with Leigh & having Michelle as a Board Member
- One-off grants? Gov & non-gov
- Use web design uni grads?
- Check status with Mic on Terry & Ness feedback to develop job description & employment hours required
Actions:
- Submit Titan EOI for website development grant (Kerry)
- Check “Joyful” through Titan
- Check Fiverrr
- Discover the details of developers on websites that we like
- Ask Rich for support or referral
- Email people for support / help by end November
- Website & job description by 1 December
Action Stations Review:
We reviewed what we had started with to give us a good overview of how much work we had TIDIED UP!!!
- What do I need to happen? – Completed
- Membership Stuff – Document is central is all handbooks Completed
- Tidying Up – Completed
- Strategic Planning – Plan Admin – occurring Maps – Powerful question to invite conversation – Completed
- Pillars / principles – Completed
- Communication – Actions to be completed – Completed
- Dollar Stuff – Completed
- NDIS / Cobu – IN PROGRESS
- Filing – Actions Completed – IN PROGRESS
- Brainstorming Idea – Completed
- Evolutionary Purpose – Completed
Check Out:
Question: What personal thing are you taking home with you?
- Need to drink more…Let hair down a bit
- I love bug spray
- Affirming the people involved. I can be myself. Just nice no expectations. Be me
- Prioritize myself a bit more
- Learning with a sense of ease
- Breathing – Breathwork
- Being able to say that I have a reasonable acceptance within
- It’s gunna be ok
TIDY UP COMPLETE!!!
After 3 amazing days of hard work and nitty gritty tidying up, we all left feeling very proud of what we had achieved. Thank you to all Jeder Institute members for your invaluable contributuion, support and good company!
